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Tuesday, 26 July 2016

Acolyte River Fun, Margin Carp Stalking and Canal Roach.....

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet. It has been a mad week or so in work so finding time to blog has proven difficult to come by. Again plenty of content to catch up means i have no end of trips to choose from and rather than write an introduction around topics in the angling world that have taken my fancy i have gone with a different update this week, all out fishing trips.

So in this updates its fishing trips from start to end and i still do not think i am going to be anywhere near up to date. I guess with the car in for a job for the next two days and the idea i might not make it out this weekend if the job is not done then this is not such a bad situation to be in at all. All i will say before we get into this update is my fishing at the moment is some of the most exciting fishing i have done. Searching out new rivers, carp on the top, carp on the bottom, canal session and of course a cheeky few trips out for barbel. Its been a great adventure.

So on with the update, we start on the banks of a river in search of anything that swims, any fish would be a bonus on the new drennan acolyte rod. We follow this up with a one cast one fish carp session where stealth was the order of the day and we finish up with a trip to the canal on the pole.

A New Stretch A New Challenge....

We hit the banks as always at the crack of dawn hoping to find out normal haunt on the river at a nice level to fish. We was met with a river in spate and totally un fishable on the stick float. We had a back up option and this was to try a new stretch much further up the system where we hoped to find some clear water.

We arrived at the stretch and made the long walk to the bank expecting to find head high balsam and nettles. What we found was quite well walked in paths and some nicely positioned swims, a luxury for us considering the past few months making our own swims with shovels before fishing. Back to the car to collect the gear, again i traveled light with my octoplus box and minimal gear in my holdall, contained within the holdall was my new 14ft Drennan Acolyte Ultra rod and i could not wait to get out and give it a go.

The swim a gentle run with a sunken tree on the far bank it screamed fish and although it can be the wrong thing to do before you plumb up and run through i couldn't resist feeding the swim as i set up. Holding the new rod in my hand it lived up to its name it was so light! Adding the shimano reel just balanced it perfectly! The line threaded through the eyes it was clear that care was going to be needed with the ultra light tip section of this rod. Red maggot and hemp where the baits of choice and i was soon ready to make my first cast in earnest.

A small river but plumbed up i found around 6ft depth in front of me and on a hot day was glad of it. The first trot through brought a small chublet.

Trotting right down the middle of the river i soon found out that there was some streamer weed or a snag right on where i thought my hemp was settling. Always the way eh. A quick change of line and i found around the same depth at rod tip so i began feeding this line. It was a harder trot involving me to hold back to get over what i think was a rock in the swim but doing so saw me picking up small roach and chublets at a steady pace.

The swim then died completely and i knew it was either big fish or a predator had moved in. Till i see signs of predator activity i am always reluctant to try for the pike so i worked on the assumption it was a bigger fish in the area. I then bumped a better fish right on my hemp before then striking and making contact with a better fish the very next trot down.

The acolyte i have to be honest felt light weight in power during this battle but being so light it might have been down to the fact i didn't know at this stage just how much strain i could impart on the fish. A long tussle later a nice perch was in the net and surely this was the reason the "snack sized " roach had decided to vacate the area.

After the perch was caught i settled into a steady routine of trotting and feeding the swim and i caught steady but in spells if you get me? Long periods with no bite was followed by a good spell of steady bites fishing down the inside line.

The final net will not set any records but as first sessions go it provided something to build on and with my uncle hitting a nice bream on the feeder it provided plenty of food for thought.

Margin Carp Stalker...

A deluge of rain over a three day period saw me travelling to the lake not knowing that the level had rose a good few feet and the pegs where now under water. Luckily for me i had donned my usual wellingtons so i was well equipped for the situation. Access to many pegs was almost impossible so i set up on the banks of the first peg and contemplated whether or not to even set up.

Scanning the water for signs of fish i noticed movement right on the edge of the peg, carp being inquisitive they had obviously moved into the margins and onto the grassy areas looking for worms and insects caught out by the rise.

Feeding some corn and micro pellets close in i soon saw the water close in look agitated and what i call nervous water. It was clear a carp had moved ting under my rod tips onto the bait. A tail then come clean out of the water as a decent carp tipped up on the bait.

A method feeder loaded with micro pellets and corn on the hook all sprayed in Bubblecream Stinky stuff was carefully lowered onto the spot. Short steps into the flooded peg the operation of placing the bait on the spot with little disturbance was achieved and the rod placed on the rod rest it was a waiting game.

It took a while but eventually the rod hooped over as the carp bolted out of the swim heading straight for a margin Lilly bed! Straight onto the peg and into the water i went to apply side strain on this fish. All my battles with the better carp in here had been played out mostly in the middle of the lake with a bit of a scrap under the rod tip, this was far different, huge hard lunges for snags tested my gear to the max and it was pure power each time the fish went. I can remember early on in this fight my arm aching and we thinking i was in trouble on more than one occasion.

The fish eventually began to tire and taking a huge breath of air i knew the time was close for netting, Into the carp net she went and thank god for the flooded margin to me left as i left her in the net in the shallows while i got my breath back.

A nice carp of 13lb 8oz was on the mat and what a lovely prize she was...

She turned out to be my only fish of my 1 hour short session but i left grinning like the cheshire cat as i headed off to work for overtime.

MAP 101 2G Pole First trip on Bridgewater Canal...

The day previous i had been on the river using my new drennan acolyte but with a good pint of maggots left i just had to give the local canal a go early doors on the Sunday. A early rise i was soon on the short drive to my peg and for some time now i had my sights set on fishing this bit of canal but with only half a pole i felt it not worth while as i always like to fish a line well over out of the boat lane. With this new pole i could not do that and what a fantastic canal swim i had chose to christen the pole in.

A lot of reasons you hear fro people not fishing the canal is accessibility and where as this can be true on some canals on the bridgewater canal if you do your homework you can get close to the water and in this session i was closer than you would get on most commercials.

I only had a few hours and with only one match kit set up i decided to go all out right across the canal up near the boat. I fed some ground bait and a good bed of red maggot via my new cupping kit, what a revelation this is, but i admit i had made a cardinal sin. I fed right away without first fishing the swim for a bit and i could not for the life of me get the float to settle. I knew it was shotted to go down to the tip but it would settle on one put in and not the next and others i would go solid then pull off. After a hour or so of messing around i had put a few small roach in the keep net.

Not long after a guy come along, thank god he did, as he mentioned that it was good that they had been along and cut the weed back. Apparently the weed on the far bank had covered a third of the canal recently and it seemed a lot of it had been left under the water. All the float not settling made sense now but luckily it was not to late to re plumb up down the middle and feed the deeper line with ground bait and maggot. On the session i found feeding two large jaffa sized balls from the off then little nuggets here and there was the way to go, a clear canal i think the colour in the water really helped and as the swim grew so the better roach showed.

Feeding lightly with hemp seed seemed to get them going again when the bites died but i was really impressed with the average stamp of roach on the day and fantastic to see such silvers are there to be caught if only people would go out and fish for them. I continued to pick up roach steadily over the ground bait and it was great fun on the new pole.

The pole itself is certainly lighter than the old model and seems a lot stiffer, one thing that i thought would do my head in was the side puller elastic being visible on the side of the top kit in my eye line but i have to say i did not notice it and actually when the elastic was loose after a better fish it was simple to tighten it back up on the side pullet than looking for the internal puller kit on my old one. The pole i am sure will do me fine for my fishing and i cant wait to get some elastic in the power kits for some fun with the carp.

The final net was a 10.7lb net of silvers and a fantastic few hours on the local canal.

Packing up it was a joy to be joined by a lovely family of swans and their cygnets, fish and wildlife on the local cut...bliss.